Mailing machines for printing postage indicia as evidence of postage payment on envelopes and other forms of mail pieces have enjoyed considerable commercial success. There are many different types of mailing machines, ranging from relatively small units that handle only one mail piece at a time, to large, multi-functional units that can process hundreds of mail pieces per hour in a continuous stream operation. Prior modern mailing machines that include postage meters store funds locally in a physically secure electronic postal security device (PSD). The postage fund credits are acquired though a postage purchase transaction known as a reset that is now typically electronically processed over a network connected to a data center.
Mailers that wish to use multiple carriers must typically manually decide which mail to induct with each separate carrier and then use separate mailing machines to process the outgoing mail assigned to each carrier. Some mailing machines are created in a generic fashion and then “localized” to configure the postal security device to operate with the particular currency, postal rates and indicia format required. For example, commonly-owned U.S. Pat. No. 6,178,412 B1, issued Jan. 23, 2001 to Roger J. Ratzenberger, Jr., et al. describes a postage metering system that is configurable to adapt to a particular currency and is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
However, there is a need for an integrated system that will allow a user to automatically or manually select from a plurality of carriers and securely create postal indicia for each carrier while using a single mailing machine.